HU Credits: 4

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: International Relations

Semester: 1st Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Daniel Sobelman

Coordinator Email: Daniel.sobelman@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours:

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Daniel Sobelman

Course/Module description:
The Prussian military theorist Von Clausewitz famously characterized war as the continuation of politics by other means. But why do wars occur in the first place? What brings seemingly rational, even risk-averse, actors to incur high costs of war when they could have resolved their differences short of a painful military confrontation? How can wars be prevented or brought to a stop? What happens when outside powers join the fray? Could a nuclear war take place? What explains the absence, so far, of a nuclear exchange? This undergraduate class will explore and analyze these key issues and other related questions from a theoretical, historical, and comparative approach. We will examine the manner in which states exploit others’ fear of military confrontation, or alternatively, harness a conflict that just ended to shape the rules of the game, enforce a new status quo, or reach a peaceful settlement. We shall discuss the way in which the field of International Relations has approached the changing nature of warfare and the emergence of powerful violent non-state actors, and other questions, such as the diffusion of power and the increasing reliance on unmanned weapons and cyber technologies. We will pursue these topics though important historical case studies.

Course/Module aims:

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
On successful completion of this class, students will have an understanding of the leading IR theories of the causes of war

They will have broadened their empirical knowledge of the causes of specific historical case studies

Students will acquire research skills, including in use of primary sources

Attendance requirements(%):
100

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction:

Course/Module Content:
Constantly in the Background: War as the Default Option of International Politics

War Made the State and Vice Versa

Force, Power, Motivation, Influence, Strategy and Doctrine

Theories, Models, and One Overarching Consensus: War is a Gamble

The Realist System-Level Approach: Anarchy and the Balance of Power as a Cause of War

The Security Dilemma and the Offense-Defense Balance

Introduction: Assignments, Expectations, and War


It’s All Politics: War as the Outcome of Political Bargaining

War as a Result of International Bargaining: War and Strategic Interaction

War in the Modern and Pre-Modern World

“And What Will We Do in the Afternoon?” False Optimism and War


Expecting a Quick, Decisive Victory: First World War


The Sudeten Crisis, Czechoslovakia, and the Road to the Second World War


The Causes and Legacy of World War II: The Necessity to Avoid Wars, Not Win Them

Asymmetric Wars: Why do the Weak Go to War? And How Come They Sometime Win?

Red Lines and Firebreaks

Preventive and Preemptive Wars

Rounds, Escalations, Wars, and Cease-Fires: Israel and the Gaza Strip

The Deterrence Model: The Second Lebanon War and the “Third Lebanon War” as Case Studies

Israel, Iran and the Continuous Battle Between the Wars

Is Clausewitz Still Relevant in the 21st Century?

The History of Future Wars: Why We Like to Prepare to the Last War

Cyberwarfare

Short-of-War: Deterrence, Coercive Diplomacy and the Fear of the Ultimate Gamble

Civil Wars

Concluding session

Required Reading:
Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New York: Palgrave, 1977), pp. 178-193.

Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol (eds.), Bringing the State Back (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 169-186.


Janice Bially Mattern, “The concept of Power and the (Un)discipline of International Relations,” in The Oxford Handbook of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015),

Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York: Random House, 1962), Chap. 1.

Jack S. Levy and William R. Thompson, Causes of War (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), Chap. 2.

Stephen Van Evera, Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War, International Security Vol. 22, No. 4 (Spring, 1998), pp. 5-43.

Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essene of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, second edition (New York: Longman, 1999), Chap. 5.

James D. Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations of War,” International Organization, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Summer, 1995), pp. 379-414.

Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: a History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 69-81, pp. 82-95.

Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), pp. 14-34.

Stephen Van Evera, “European Militaries and the Origins of World War I,” in Richard N. Rosencrance and Steven E. Miller (eds), The Next Great War? The Roots of World War I and the Risk of U.S.-China Conflict (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2014), pp. 149-175.

David Vital, The Survival of Small States (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 13-53.

Henry A. Kissinger, “Force and Diplomacy in the Nuclear Age,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 34, No. 3 (April, 1956), pp. 349-366.

T.V. Paul, Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

מיכה בר, קווים אדומים באסטרטגיית ההרתעה הישראלית (תל אביב: מערכות, 1990), עמ׳ 13-48.


Harel Chorev, “The Road to Operation Protective Edge: Gaps in Strategic Perception,” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. 8, No. 3 (2014), pp. 9-24.

Daniel Sobelman, “Learning to Deter: Deterrence Failure and Success in the Israel-Hezbollah Conflict, 2006-2016,” International Security, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Winter, 2016/17), pp. 151-196.

Daniel Sobelman, “On a Collision Course: Avoiding a War Between Israel and the Axis of Resistance,” War on the Rocks, December 2017.

Emile Simpson, War from the Ground Up: Twenty-First Century Combat as Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), Chap. 2.

Lawrence Freedman, The Future of War: A History (New York: PublicAffairs, 2017).

Thomas Rid, “Cyber War Will Not Take Place,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 35, No. 1 (2012)

Daniel Sobelman,
"Restraining an Ally: Israel, the United States, and Iran’s Nuclear Program, 2011-2012," Texas National Security Review, Vol. 1 No. 4 (2018).

Jack S. Levy and William R. Thompson, Causes of War (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), Chap. 8.

Additional Reading Material:

Grading Scheme :
Essay / Project / Final Assignment / Referat 70 %
Active Participation / Team Assignment 10 %
Submission assignments during the semester: Exercises / Essays / Audits / Reports / Forum / Simulation / others 20 %

Additional information: